-‘That’s if this contraption ever gets to the top.’-
Barney narrating
We were all off for the weekend. It was raining incessantly and the buses were late. Jerry drove us to the bus stop in a Pools van, and we were parked up waiting. Macker, Bernie and Josie hadn’t come.
But Maggie and Lucy, were making whoopee with Moonbeam in the back, plus me, Sol and Maxie, three bikes and boxes of gear, and food.
Currently enduring their fifth day of incarceration after barricading themselves inside the Keystone XL pipeline. Help get them out with a donation to their legal fund.
WINONA, TX – MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 7:30 AM – Several protestors with Tar Sands Blockade sealed themselves inside a section of pipe destined for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to stop construction of the dangerous project. Using a blockading technique never implemented before, Matt Almonte and Glen Collins locked themselves between two barrels of concrete weighing over six hundred pounds each, aided by Isabel Indigo Brooks who went in with them .
Located twenty-five feet into a pipe segment waiting to be laid in the ground, the outer barrel is barricading the pihttp://tarsandsblockade.org/pe’s opening and neither barrel can be moved without risking serious injury to the blockaders.
Matt Almonte
The barricaded section of the pipeline passes through a residential neighborhood in Winona, TX. If TransCanada moves ahead with the trenching and burying of this particular section of pipe, it would run less than a hundred feet from neighboring homes.
Tar sands pipelines threaten East Texas communities with their highly toxic contents, which pose a greater risk to human health than conventional crude oil. TransCanada’s existing tar sands pipeline, Keystone XL’s predecessor, has an atrocious safety record, leaking twelve times in its first year of operation.
“TransCanada didn’t bother to ask the people of this neighborhood if they wanted to have millions of gallons of poisonous tar sands pumped through their backyards,” said Almonte, one of the protesters now inside the pipeline. “This multinational corporation has bullied landowners and expropriated homes to fatten its bottom line.”
Recently, over 40 communities worldwide planned actions with Tar Sands Blockade during a week of resistance against extreme energy extraction and its direct connection to the climate crisis. A growing global movement is rising up against the abuses of the fossil fuel industry and its increasingly desperate pursuit of dangerous extraction methods.
“I’m barricading this pipe with Tar Sands Blockade today to say loud and clear to the extraction industry that our communities and the resources we depend on for survival are not collateral damage,” said Collins, another blockader inside the pipe and an organizer with Radical Action for Mountain Peoples Survival (RAMPS) and Mountain Justice, grassroots campaigns in Appalachia working to stop mountaintop removal coal mining.
“This fight in East Texas against tar sands exploitation is one and the same as our fight in the hollers of West Virginia. Dirty energy extraction doesn’t just threaten my home; it threatens the collective future of the planet.”
Glen Collins
“At this late stage, doing nothing is a greater danger than the risks of taking direct action to stop destructive projects like Keystone XL,” said Ron Seifert, a spokesperson for Tar Sands Blockade. “That’s why folks working with groups like RAMPS, the Unist’ot’en Camp fighting a natural gas pipeline in British Columbia and Tar Sands Blockade are willing to use everything including their own hands and feet to ensure we all have a safe climate and healthy, thriving communities.”
HUNGER STRIKE CONTINUES
Today also marks day 5 of the Houston Hunger Strike in which Gulf Coast activists with Tar Sands Blockade are going without food to demand that Valero divest entirely from the Keystone XL pipeline and invest in the health and wellbeing of the communities it’s poisoning.
Diane Wilson and Bob Lindsey still on hunger strike in prison..
Diane Wilson and Bob Lindsey are undertaking a sustained hunger strike in solidarity with the Manchester community in Houston. Their hunger strike began with an act of civil disobedience on November, 29th when they locked their necks to tanker trucks attempting to enter the Valero refinery in Manchester. They refuse to eat until the following demands are met:
1. Velero completely divest from Keystone XL and all forms of tar sands exploitation
2. Velero invest in the health and well being of the Manchester community
3. Valero refinery shut down and vacate the Manchester community
UPDATES HERE:::BAIL MONEY STILL NEEDED:::WRITE TO PRISONERS:::NEW ACTIONS:::
Bolivian government manages to split resistance to highway with a spurious consultation process.. Friday December 7
Often dubbed ‘the most beautiful place on Earth’, Isiboro Sécure (TIPNIS in Spanish), is the crown jewel of the Bolivian Amazon, famous for its huge trees, astonishing wildlife, and fresh water. Its incredible natural and cultural significance have earned it the status, until now, of a double protected area — as a National Park and an indigenous reservoir. Continue reading “Bolivia Buys Majority to Destroy Tipnis”
Ben Franklin once said that nothing in this world is certain except death and taxes; clearly he wasn’t a jellyfish man. As scientists discovered in 1996, Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as the “immortal jellyfish,” has in fact figured out a way to escape death (and reportedly paid no taxes this year, either).
At any stage in its development, this jelly can turn back into a polyp, growing younger and younger and then starting over again. As you might expect, immortality has allowed it to spread far and wide in what one biology professor has called “a silent invasion.”
What does the jelly’s curious secret mean for people? According to Shin Kubota, a Japanese scientist who’s devoted himself to the species for years — and become a famous jellyfish songwriter in the process — “Once we determine how the jellyfish rejuvenates itself, we should achieve very great things. My opinion is that we will evolve and become immortal ourselves.” Kubota’s not sure that’s a good thing, though — he doesn’t think humans are ready for eternal life.
Check out this video of Kubota singing praises to the immortal jellyfish: Jellyfish
by Jordan Nichols A recently released PricewaterhouseCoopers (or PwC) report, titled Too Late for Two Degrees?, suggests that, to meet even a goal of a 4° C increase in global mean temperatures the world must quadruple our current rate of decarbonization. (Yes, this is that PwC — the “Big 4” accounting firm and the largest professional services firm in the world.) This is the most alarming study I have come across in months.
A 4o C global warming is double the threshold climate scientists will say must not be crossed to avoid disastrous impacts of climate change within this century and beyond. It will take a massive, concertized international effort by both developed and developing nations to stop short of this ‘climate cliff.’ Continue reading “Climate Criminals to push us over a Cliff: PWC report”
**********************
The Free 